Category: New Order

I won’t beat about the bush. This is an abomination of a record.

Sub-Culture was, and remains, one of the highlights on Lowlife. It was inexplicable that Factory and the band went for a second single off the album and even more baffling that they went down the road of such a drastic remix that was so inferior to the original.

It sold poorly, reaching only #63 in the charts on its release in October 1985; there wasn’t even a decent sleeve to enjoy as Peter Saville hated this version so much that he provided a plain black sleeve.

Couple of things I learned from Hooky’s book.

#1 – he also hated the remix : “I thought the off-time bass synth too loud and distracting and there were too, too many edits, and the girly backing vocals, oh God. I thought John Robie (the remixer) was just showing off.” He also confirmed that Saville had refused to do any sleeve and what he therefore came up with was a ‘mourning sleeve’.

#2 – Sub-Culture, along with This Time Of Night, were influenced by the band (all four of them) being occasional visitors to Skin Two, a fetish club in London, not too far from Britannia Row Studios where they were busy putting their new LP together. You don’t have too look too far to spot some sado-masochsim references in the lyrics.

This was the first New Order single that I didn’t buy at the time. I did, some ten years ago, find a 12″ copy in a second-hand store in Toronto going for $2 – obviously a time that was was prior to the real surge in interest in vinyl. The sleeve looks like this:-

Although the b-side of the Canadian single is called Subvulture, it is in fact identical to the UK release which had it as Dubvulture. These are from that piece of vinyl:-

mp3 : New Order – Sub-Culture (12″ remix)
mp3 : New Order – Dubvulture

Here’s the 7″ edit of the a-side as found on the Substance compilation that was later released in 1987:-

mp3 : New Order – Sub-Culture (7″ remix)

Interestingly, there was a more than decent Robie remix made available at the time, but only if you were a reader of UK music paper Record Mirror.

mp3 : New Order – Sub-Culture (Record Mirror exclusive remix)

Pleased that I managed to track this down after all these years. It’s made the posting today somewhat worthwhile. Also makes me understand why the band would continue to work with Robie on later singles.

JC

Only a band as perverse as New Order would choose to release a new single and new alum on the same day – but that’s exactly what happened in May 1985 with The Perfect Kiss and Low-Life.

Having enjoyed chart success with each of Temptation, Blue Monday, Confusion and Thieves Like Us, there was perhaps a sense of supreme confidence that fans would buy both releases. It turned out to be a bit misplaced, perhaps as it was the first time the band had ever included a 45 on an LP, a move that got a bit of press criticism at the time.

The Perfect Kiss is one of their most defining and timeless moments and it certainly should have done a lot better than stick at #46 in the singles chart. It is part of a truly outstanding album, one which went to #7.

I’m going to be lazy today and lift from the Discogs site:-

New Order’s 9th single. Released 13 May 1985 as 7″ promo and 12″. It is the first New Order single to be included on a studio album at the same time. The song has some famous musical elements, e.g. frogs croaking and, at the end of the track, some bleating of (synthesized) sheeps.

Lasting nearly 9 minutes, the 12″ single version only appears on the vinyl and cassette editions of Substance, while the CD omit 44 seconds of the climatic finale. The full version was eventually released unedited on the 2-disc deluxe edition of Low-Life, marking its first appearance on CD.

The versions on the album Low-Life and all post-Substance compilations are 4:48 edit, omitting the third verse (the one that mentions the song’s title) and fading out before the climax. Most 7″s have on their A-side another version,  further edited down without the percussion introduction.

Jonathan Demme directed “The Perfect Kiss” video, set in the band’s rehearsal room. It shows the band playing the song live from beginning to end. The video got cat# Fac 321.

And so, to try and wrap up all of the above :-

mp3 : New Order – The Perfect Kiss (12″ version)

The two b-sides:-

mp3 : New Order – Kiss Of Death
mp3 : New Order – The Perfect Pit

mp3 : New Order – The Perfect Kiss (album version)
mp3 : New Order – The Perfect Kiss (7″ version)

JC

I’m rolling up the next two releases into one post, primarily as the sleeves are connected, but also as the second of the 45s was only available on import from Factory Benelux and is really a companion piece to the first.

It was a bit of a shock to hear each of Thieves Like Us and Lonesome Tonight when they were released in April 1984, a full eight months after Confusion. A shock, but a very pleasant surprise as they were something of a throwback to earlier New Order with much less reliance on the New York club sound that Arthur Baker had brought to them.

It was a 12″ that divided the four New Order fans in the student flat I was living in at the time. Two of us loved it while the other two (no pun intended) felt it was a retrospective move and that the band should be aiming exclusively for the club scene rather than making great synth-pop in what they felt was an increasingly crowded market in which quantity was rapidly overpowering quality.

There were enough of us who loved the single enough to take it to #18 in the UK charts, another outstanding performance for a piece of vinyl that was only released in 12″ format:-

mp3 : New Order – Thieves Like Us
mp3 : New Order – Lonesome Tonight

The A-side is Hooky’s favourite New Order song, which I was surprised to learn as I’d have thought he would have veered towards the rather marvelous b-side which is driven along by one of his best bass lines, almost as if he’s challenging his band mates to play something that is as classy and as cool as the notes he’s hitting.

Couple of things I learned from Hooky’s book about this release. They had started on Thieves Like Us many months earlier in NYC but as it had taken so long to finish Confusion, they never got far with it, but there was enough of what had been put down in NYC in the later version that Arthur Baker gets a writing credit.

There’s a strange noise at the tail end of Lonesome Tonight which is actually Hooky hawking up phlegm into a handkerchief : “Barney….suggested we put it on at the end because the contrast between something so beautiful and something so awful might be interesting. He was absolutely right.”

A few weeks later, Murder began to filter into some shops; it was recognisable as a New Order release from the sleeve as was almost a negative version of that which had housed Thieves Like Us. I paid a lot of money for it, took it home, played it and felt really let down. It sounded like an Adam and the Ants outtake with a bit of Barney’s specialised one-finger guitar solo thrown in. It’s a bit of music that I’ve never really taken to, although many years later I did come to realise that it was an important part of the sounds they were developing and would subsequently lay down on the Low-Life LP. But even now, I still feel it was akin to shoving a demo out to make some money:-

mp3 : New Order – Murder

The two sleeves, as ever in those days, were by Peter Saville. They were based on what I would later learn was Metaphysical art, a unique style of painting developed by the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico in the 1910s and 20s. The numbers around the side are totally random, which looking back was Saville having a bit of fun given that his sleeves for the various releases in 1983 could be worked out from codes and colours. We were all sure there was something in those numbers and spent a few drunken nights trying to work it all out….time was less precious in those days!

It’s b-side was a version of a familiar number:-

mp3 : New Order – Thieves Like Us (instrumental version)

A little while later, an edited version of this was made available on the 7″ reverse of Shellshock:-

mp3 : New Order – Thieves Like Us (instrumental edit)

Finally, a TOTP appearance for the single in which they played live and Hooky’s bass caused pandemonium in the households up and down the country:-

The single dropped down the charts the following week!

JC

The collaboration that took everyone by surprise. New Order chose to follow up Blue Monday by heading over to New York and collaborating with DJ/mixer/producer Arthur Baker. The result was a 12″ single (Factory 93) containing four versions of the tune:-

mp3 : New Order – Confusion (8:13)
mp3 : New Order – Confused Beats (6:30)
mp3 : New Order – Confusion Instrumental (7:33)
mp3 : New Order – Confusion (Rough Mix) (8:04)

It reached #12 in the UK singles chart which was quite extraordinary given that the band were still very much a cult and the single had little daytime radio exposure. One of my abiding memories of it was that the promo was on what was then a new thing in the bar of the students union – a videobox as opposed to a jukebox. It was much more expensive and so some of us would club together to ensure, much to the annoyance of the beer-swilling rockers who studied engineering, that Confusion was on heavy rotation.

It’s perfectly of its time, and remains a huge influence on club/dance music almost 35 years on.

The song was completely revamped for inclusion on the Substance compilation :-

mp3 : New Order – Confusion 87 (4:43)

And then, in 1995, there was acid techno remix by Pump Panel, which was later used in 1998 as part of the soundtrack for the film Blade:-

mp3 : New Order – Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix) (10:11)

JC

I’ll let Discogs state the facts:-

Blue Monday :  New Order’s 5th single. A milestone, both by musical standards and by design standards. Sold over 1 million copies globally. But because at the time of release, Factory weren’t part of the BPI, there are no reliable figures nor certifications or awards.

Initial editions were released in March 1983 with die-cut cover and cut outs and a thick silver inner sleeve, designed by Peter Saville.

Cover variations: Die-cut with cut-outs, die-cut without cut-outs, plain printed.
Inner sleeve variations: Thick glossy silver, thin matte silver, thick glossy black or thin matte black.
All bear the colour code, spelling “FAC 73 Blue Monday And The Beach New Order”.

There is a common misconception that Factory lost money on the release due to the design. The sleeve did cost so much that it actually denied Factory an extra profit of just under 1 UK Pence on each copy sold. But demand and production cost and timings meant that the sleeve became progressively more simple with each repressing.

Peaked at #9 in the UK Single charts and at #1 in the UK Indie Charts.

Blue Monday 1988: New Order’s 16th single, released in March 1988. Produced by Quincy Jones with the actual remix done by John Potoker. After New Order signed to Qwest in the US, Quincy Jones saw an opportunity for their groundbreaking track to have a legitimate single release and a shot at radio airplay. In the UK it was released as 7″, 12″, CD-Single and as CD-V, featuring an alternate 7″ mix.

Also reissued in 1995 with new remixes.

 

But quite frankly, nothing beats the original.  I reckon I’ve probably, over the years, danced to this track more than any other.

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday
mp3 : New Order – The Beach

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 1988 (single mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 1988 (12″ mix)

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Hardfloor mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Manuella mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Andrea mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Plutone mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Brain mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Starwash mix)
mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday 95 (Hardfloor Dub)

Re these mixes of Blue Monday 95 – some were for the UK market and others for Europe and also Australia.  I’m guessing it’s all to do with whatever styles of clubs were most in fashion in whic part of the world.  There’s elements of trance, dub, techno, ambient, acid and house all to be found. A word of warning – they do get a tad wearisome rather quickly….but there will be folk out there who enjoy some and maybe even all of them.

Oh and for completeness sake:-

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday  (So Hot Mix by 808 State)

This was done in 1988 to appeal to the Acid House market.

Took me ages to pull this post together…..I had no idea so many mixes had been commercially released.

JC

I’ve previously written extensively about this, my all-time favourite single, and so I won’t waste on your precious time this Sunday morning. Oh, and just to make it 100% clear….it’s the 12″ original version from 1983 that tops my all-time personal chart.

Few things to mention.

Firstly, it hadn’t occurred to me until Hooky mentioned it in his book that this was the first New Order effort without the involvement of Martin Hannett.

Secondly, the re-recording of the song for inclusion in the CD compilation Substance in 1987, is not one fondly remembered by the band. The idea was to try and make it sound more the way it did in the live setting but it ended up stripping out far too many of the lot of the subtle nuances in the 7″ and 12″ originals. It’s not one I’m keen on albeit it is the best known version thanks to its inclusion on the Trainspotting soundtrack.

Thirdly, another new version was recorded by the band in 1998.  It’s fairly similar to the earlier 1987 version, but given they didn’t like it to begin with this was perhaps an effort to rectify things. It certainly is a vast improvement but at a touch over 4 minutes is a bit short for my liking.  Was made available via the Retro box set.

Finally, a reminder that the 7″ plays at 33-and-a-third rpm and the 12″ rotates properly at 45rpm. Not knowing that caused chaos the first time I played it.

mp3 : New Order – Temptation (7″)
mp3 : New Order – Hurt (7″)

mp3 : New Order – Temptation (12″)
mp3 : New Order – Hurt (12″)

mp3 : New Order – Temptation 87

mp3 : New Order – Temptation 98

JC

Today’s first half is lifted from a posting back in May 2016:-

New Order had released a belter of a debut single in Ceremony. The follow-up hit the shops in September 1981:-

mp3 : New Order – Procession

It was quite similar to a number of the tracks on the debut LP Movement and it wasn’t a huge shift away from the Joy Division sound albeit it did highlight that with Bernard Sumner was a completely different sort of vocalist from Ian Curtis.

I bought the only copy of this single that my local record shop had and it came in a cardboard sleeve with a strange green design which I thought alluded to the title of the b-side. I soon discovered that it had been released in nine different coloured sleeves (as illustrated above) and while I wanted to own every single one of them, there was no way an 18-year-old student, who that month had just started university, was going to waste valuable vodka money on something as unworthy as a 7″ bit of plastic.

The b-side was a precursor to what New Order would become within a few months – a band of their own right delivering electronic dance-music.

mp3 : New Order – Everything’s Gone Green

This is ripped right from vinyl folks and is a bit shorter than the versions generally available on compilation LPs, so please forgive the fact that there’s also a wee skip and a jump about 3mins in…..

Second Half

In December 1981, Factory Benelux would release a 12″ version of Everything’s Gone Green, backed by two completely new tracks.  This merely added to the mystique of the original release with some considering it was a double-A single.  The import was ridiculously expensive compared to other 12″ singles of the day, but I still went for it. It was later re=released in 1985 and again in 1986, but I have the original with the solid gray/white label, blue type, and cat number of FBNL 8.

I’ve included all these images as the labeling caused confusion for years. The track names of the B-sides are correctly identified on the label, but, if you look at the sleeve, they are the wrong way round. This would lead to their being misidentified on subsequent releases; for example, the track identified as “Mesh” on the CD version of the Substance CD compilation is in fact “Cries and Whispers”.

mp3 : New Order – Everything’s Gone Green (12″ version)
mp3 : New Order – Cries and Whispers
mp3 : New Order – Mesh

Two hugely enjoyable and much underrated b-sides no matter what name they were given! And better than some of the cuts that were included on Movement.

JC

This is why events unnerve me
They find it all a different story

The plethora of books and documentaries, along with one outstanding biopic, means that we are very familiar with the events leading up the suicide of Ian Curtis and how his fellow band mates came to the view that things had to be kept going. But back in 1980/81, those of us who were fans of Joy Division had little or no idea what was going on, relying totally on any snippets of news that we could pick up in the pages of one of more of the weekly music papers.

Until the suicide, Joy Division were very much seen a cult band. Unknown Pleasures had sold around 20,000 copies which was still more than decent for a band on a small and relatively obscure Manchester-based record label. The adulation heaped upon the singer after his death was a big factor in raising the profile of the band and the subsequent rise in popularity. This created a bit of a problem in that New Order, as they had now been renamed, were understandably reluctant to do much in the way of press or media as the dominant topic wouldn’t be ‘What are you doing next?’ but the inevitable inquisition into why the their former frontman had killed himself – and remember…his epilepsy, his messy personal life and his battle with depression wasn’t something that had previously been mentioned or written about – we know so much more now all these years later than we did at the time.

It was against this background that Ceremony was slipped out, almost unnoticed and with very little fanfare, as the debut single in January 1981. I had it on order (boom-boom!) at the local record shop and picked it up a couple of days after its release. I still hadn’t heard it by this point and was secretly pleased when the long-haired rocker behind the counter said it was unlistenable and depressing and wasn’t prepared to play it in the shop for me. It meant I would get to hear it at home, albeit on a record player that was as basic as there was although I had hopes of getting to play it on the ‘big stereo’ if my folks weren’t in. The amazingly effective and affecting bronze-coloured sleeve that looked like some sort of memorial plaque, almost as if it was paying respect to the old band, only added to my excitement as I raced down the road as quickly as I could without running – that would have been uncool and pathetic.

The label on the record gave a writing credit to Ian Curtis as well as the three members of New Order, so it was clearly a song Joy Division had been working on at some stage; in later years we would learn that it was one of the last songs they had demoed just days before the suicide.

The needle hit the groove and I listened in awe to music that was comfortingly familiar albeit it was lacking the vocal was lacking power and authority.

mp3 : New Order – Ceremony

The b-side was, if anything, even more reminiscent of the old band. I was mesmerised.

The single climbed into the charts in the high 30s and so the local record shop got in some more copies, including the 12” in a green sleeve. I bought that too and was marginally disappointed that only the b-side was slightly longer in length.

mp3 : New Order – In A Lonely Place (7″ version)
mp3 : New Order – In A Lonely Place (12″ version)

It was a brilliant debut single. If New Order had wanted to call it quits there and then, I’d have been okay with it. I wasn’t alone in thinking back then that Ian Curtis was the principal songwriter, lyrically and musically, and so if there weren’t many more tunes that he’d been involved with before the suicide, the new band might struggle to match the heights of their first release. Subsequent events proved otherwise…..

Ceremony is not, by a long chalk, the best single ever released by New Order. I reserve that honour for Temptation. But it’s a hugely important and significant 45 for all sorts of reasons…as indeed were the next few singles that the band would release. Which is why, now that I’ve reached the end of the look back at XTC,the Sunday singles focus will now be on Gilbert/Hook/Morris/Sumner.

JC

PS : Part of what I’m intending to do in the series is offer up some of the alternative/re-recorded versions of singles and so, for the sake of completeness, here’s the second and, IMHO, inferior version of the debut, issued in 12″ form in September 1981, and which, unlike the original, features a contribution from Gillian Gilbert:-

mp3 : New Order – Ceremony (re-recorded version)

 

Thursday 4 May 2017 is going to down in history in my home city, and not just for the fact it marks the arrival of the Walter and Brian as the first for the bloggers weekend…..

It’s also election day for the local council and without any shadow of a doubt the ruling Administration is going to be swept out of power. It’s almost unheard of for the Labour Party not to be running Glasgow City Council as they have held outright power for all but eight years since 1934. The last time there wasn’t a Labour Leader in office was a two-year spell from 1977-1979.

The Scottish Nationalists, either on their own or via a coalition with the Greens are certain to wake up tomorrow and have their first ever control of the magnificent City Chambers built as long ago as 1888. It’s a building I spent much of my career working in, for spells as an aide/advisor to some of the leading political figures in the council and so I know first-hand the complexity of the challenges in managing and delivering the vital and essential services that the residents and those working in the city are so heavily dependent on.

I might not agree with the politics of those who are going to take over but I really do wish them well in their endeavours. It will be fascinating to see how good a job they make of things and how they will cope having these new responsibilities for tough and difficult decisions, especially when there is such a lack of leadership experience. I’ve no doubt however, they will draw heavily from and lean on their colleagues who have been in charge of other political bodies in recent years.

This seems appropriate today.

mp3 : New Order – Times Change

JC

They were #20 in the series back in June 2015 and I went with these tracks:-

Side A

Age Of Consent
The Perfect Kiss (12″)
Lonesome Tonight
Temptation (12″)
Run

Side B

Love Vigilantes
True Faith
Ceremony
Blue Monday
Leave Me Alone

Just six weeks later, a second New Order ICA was offered up as #28 in the series, courtesy of a guest posting by Martin Elliot from Sweden, that had been a work in progress when my own offering appeared:-

Side A

Blue Monday
1963
Round & Round (KS club mix)
Regret (Sabres Slow n Low)
Age Of Consent

Side B

True Dub
Someone Like You (GD Vocotech dub)
World (Brothers in Rhythm)
The Perfect Kiss (12″)
Ceremony

I happened to put New Order on shuffle on the i-pod the other week and was quickly reminded just how many great bits of music they had put out, particularly in the early part of their career, so much so I thought a record-breaking third ICA would go down well. The only rule being all ten songs this time can’t have been featured at all in any shape in either of my own or Martin’s postings from 2015. Let’s Go……

SIDE A

1. Love Vigilantes (from Low-Life, 1985)

If it wasn’t for the fact that Age of Consent is such a stunning opening to Power, Corruption & Lies than I would reckon many of us would argue that this is as fine an opening, not to just to any New Order LP, but to any LP as there has been. It’s a tremendous bit of pop music and one of the finest ghost stories that anyone could ever sway their hips to.

2. Confusion (rough mix) (single, 1983)

Let’s stay up there on the dance floor with the song that paid tribute to the changing face and sound of NYC nightclubs and hatched the idea for The Hacienda. As I’ve mentioned before on this blog, it wouldn’t have happened without the production work and values of Arthur Baker as clearly demonstrated by its similarities to the earlier hit single I.O.U. by Freez, but it was a sound and a technique which New Order were already exploring, the conquering of which would make them as important as any band that has ever emerged from the UK.

3. Thieves Like Us (single, 1984)

I had the b-side to this on the original ICA and while I stand by my claim that Lonesome Tonight is the better song there’s no getting away from the fact that this is a hugely under-appreciated single which in many ways ticks all the boxes – great bass line, unusual and catchy drum beat, the one-fingered keyboard solo and a nonsensical lyric that, by somehow hanging brilliantly together, makes perfect sense. And as an added bonus it has Barney singing in and out of tune….

4. Shame Of The Nation (7″ version) (b-side 1986)

While he’s no Weller or Bragg, I’ll doff my cap to Barney for having a go at writing a political protest song at the height of Thatcherism. It was a single that was widely ridiculed upon its release and which, to be honest, hasn’t date all that well , but the additional work on the b-side, for which producer John Robie is attributed a credit, means it is more than salvageable thirty years on. As far as I know this particular version has never been made available in any other format than the original 7″ vinyl. It’s clearly been edited down from the full-length format with some unwieldy edits but it’s included here given that any Volume 3 of a release needs some sort of rarity to make it appeal….

5. Dreams Never End (from Movement, 1981)

This is inspired by Martin who, in his New Order ICA, pointed out that a brilliant LP opener – Age Of Consent – can also work just as effectively as a closer to a side and make you want to flip the vinyl over without any hesitation. The one where Hooky had a go at being lead vocalist and the one that you know would have made a great Joy Division single.

SIDE B

1. Your Silent Face (from Power, Corruption & Lies, 1983)

This was the one track that I just couldn’t find the room for back in June 2015 which was painful as it is one of my all-time favourite NO songs, but my rule of thumb for an ICA is that it has to hang together as an album and not merely be a collection of tunes. It opens up Side B of PC&L and this is perfectly place right here.

2. Bizarre Love Triangle 94 (from Best Of, 1994)

The rapid advances in production techniques were such that Stephen Hague could take what was one of the band’s most recognisable numbers and make it even more New Order-sounding than the band had managed back in 1986. It was one of four tracks that he worked on for this particular release and helped make it something worth purchasing with the nice little fade out at the end allows a nice lead-in to….

3. Paradise (from Brotherhood, 1986)

The band’s fourth album was something of a disappointment in comparison to the other work that came immediately before and shortly afterwards. It certainly suffered from the decision to put five guitar-based songs back-to-back on side A with the flip side being the more electronic based numbers. I’m not going to argue that all ten tracks are essential but it certainly isn’t as duff a record as I first thought.

4. Vanishing Point (from Technique, 1989)

I’ll long argue that Technique is the band’s finest LP, It’s strange because it came out at a time when I was missing out on so much music and I wasn’t buying much, but as a long-standing fan and having just about everything in the collection I made sure I picked it up when it was released. It came across as such a happy and triumphant record that I fell for its charms on first listen – it seemed to have everything I wanted the band to do with its mix of guitar and electronica with so many that you just wanted to dance to…and yet the tracks that really seemed to stand out early on was this resigned sounding mid(ish)-tempo number. Maybe it was that I was feeling my own life was no holiday and I had personally reached the point of no return. Imagine that…a New Order lyric that proved to be philosophical.

5. Ruined In A Day (from Republic, 1993)

I’m closing things off with a track that I’ve come to love and appreciate only in recent years. I was never fond of much of the parent album and thought it was a sad ending (as it appeared at the time) to the band’s career. I also hated the promo video that accompanied the release of Ruined In A Day as a single and struggled to disassociate the two. But a few years ago, this came up via shuffle while I was lazing out in the garden on one of the few sunny days we get in Glasgow and it just sounded quite lovely through the headphones. It would probably have made a superb Electronic record….just imagine Johnny Marr adding a guitar solo in the middle of it and it would be damn near perfect.

So there you have it. A third volume, and while it is easy to bemoan the lack of some classics, I think it hangs together pretty well.

Bonus track today. It’s featured before on the blog in video form. If you do like this, then I urge you to go and purchase it along with the other four versions that are available:-

mp3 : Mike Garry & Joe Duddell – St Anthony : An Ode to Anthony H Wilson

Just when you thought Your Silent Face couldn’t be bettered. Buy here.

Enjoy

The fifth single from New Order. And the one which propelled them to stardom.

No-one can argue that it isn’t a classic. A song that was really quite like no other on its release. And the record sleeve is also one of the most recognisable of all time.

It is not known just how many copies of FAC 73 were sold after its release on 7 March 1983. It’s reckoned to be over a million, but because Factory Records weren’t part of the British Phonographic Industry, there are no reliable figures nor certifications or awards.

The story over the years is that the sleeve was so expensive that every copy sold actually cost the record label money. It’s a great story but its simply not true.

Yes, the initial editions with a die-cut cover and cut outs and silver inner sleeve were expensive to manufacture and package. However, once the single sold out its initial run the sleeve got progressively more simple and cheaper with each repressing.

I’ve got three copies of Blue Monday in the cupboard full of vinyl – all have different sleeves ranging from the more expensive original to what is no more than a plain black cover with the colour coding on the right hand side. You needed to own a copy of the Power, Corruption & Lies LP to decipher the code – it actually spells out the song title on both sides of the vinyl, the name of the band and the catalogue number. And here, ripped direct from the vinyl, is the music:-

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday
mp3 : New Order – The Beach

Still sounds amazing all these years later.

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON WEDNESDAY 18 JUNE 2008
(and again on 8 November 2013)

I’m not sure how many singles are released in the UK every week. Let’s guesstimate at 200.

If so, this would mean that since 1 April 1982, there have more than 250,000 bits of product originally designed to rotate on a turntable at 45rpm made available to the great British public. And not one of them has been as majestic as the work of art and genius that is Temptation by New Order.

Yup, that’s the song I consider to be my all time favourite 45 on the very day that I turn 45. And given it has held down the position for 26 years, 2 months and 18 days, its likely to hold the coveted slot for quite a while yet. At least till I’m 78 I reckon….

I’ve loads of great memories associated with this song.

My then closest friend called me up one day to say that he’d gotten his hands on the latest New Order single. He said that it wasn’t like any of the previous two releases – Ceremony and Procession – but it was something that had to be heard to be believed. I immediately got on my bike and cycled the couple of miles to his house for a listen. My mate handed me the single and invited me to place it on the turntable. He then left the room and said he’d be back in a minute or two but I was to give him my initial impression.

I thought it was appalling. There was something just not quite right about it, and who was this new vocalist that had been drafted in with his helium-like voice? My mate came back in and asked me what I thought. I looked him in the eye and asked him if he’d gone off his head as it was dreadful. It was then he burst out laughing and let-on that the single was to be played, not at 45rpm, but at 33 and 1/3 rpm….

Which I did…..and immediately fell in love with the hypnotic and robotic rhythm pulsating from the cheap speakers. This was the New Order that Tony Wilson and Rob Gretton had been been promising us for so long – and the song that finally got them to emerge from the shadows of Joy Division and stand on their own eight feet.

I don’t know how many times we played that record back-to-back that night, but a few hours later, I was back on my bike on the way home singing different snatches of the song, a cassette recording in my pocket and looking forward to buying my very own copy the following day after I’d borrowed some money from my mum.

I was lucky enough to go into a record shop which had an assistant who asked ‘Do you want the 7” or 12” version?”, and my choice of the 12” turned out be inspired.

It was quite unlike the 7” which was by now so familiar to me. The sleeve was slightly different, it had a different introduction and it rotated on the turntable at 45 rpm. It also sounded, to my ears at least, a perfect recording whereas the 7″ seemed now to be something spliced up to come in at under 5 minutes for radio play….

Now it was my turn to phone my mate and get him on his bike down to my house, where he grudgingly accepted that the 12” version was superior.

It was all a bit disappointing that Temptation didn’t make the band instant superstars – I was a bit worried that having made such a masterpiece that did next-to-nothing, New Order would soon either choose to break-up or maybe just fade into obscurity..

Instead, the band just got bigger and better in so many ways over the next 10 years or so.

And with the inclusion of a new version of Temptation on the phenomenally-successful soundtrack to the film Trainspotting, the song finally got some long-overdue recognition and acknowledgment.

Which brings me to another story (if you’ll indulge me…)

I’d like to think that this series has highlighted how important my time at University was in terms of really developing a passion for music. Most of my weekends between late-1981 and mid-1985 were spent in various parts of the Students Union at Strathclyde University – be it Level 8 for gigs and the ‘popular’ indie-disco, or the smaller downstairs converted dining-room for the more obscure stuff mixed in with the Goths.

Upon graduating, I moved to Edinburgh to live and work and I reckoned that I’d never set foot in the building again. Which I didn’t……

………until 12 years later when I accompanied a local dignitary who I worked for as he had the task of giving a welcome speech as part of an event for the fresh intake of students in September 1997. The location was the newly furbished Level 8 of the very building that I had spent so many happy nights. I was a bit unsure of myself as I got into the lift to go up the 8 floors of the building where maybe 300 or so students were patiently waiting for the formalities to begin. As I stepped into the space, my jaw visibly dropped at how different it all looked….the makeover had changed the old haunt beyond recognition……but the real shock was to hear that the song coming over the speakers was Temptation. I was a bit spooked to say the least…

It turned out that the CD to the Trainspotting soundtrack was what was being played, but to have arrived at that moment as Barney was singing about grey eyes, green eyes and blue eyes was really disconcerting…

But it’s not just the stories and memories that makes this song so very special.

The 12” version of this song is so joyously infectious that you can’t help but sing along. Its so incredibly catchy that you can’t stop yourself dancing. Its also a track that has often been a live tour-de-force at New Order gigs. The early 90s documentary ‘New Order Story’ has got an especially incredible version recorded live at Montreux in Switzerland…

I don’t know how many times I’ve played Temptation. It was a near staple inclusion on all the compilation tapes I used to make, and I still include one version or another of it on many of the playlists compiled for the I-pod. I have never ever grown bored by it, and know that I never will.

And…..as I mentioned above, there’s also the fact that it did so much to establish New Order as an act in their own image, and not just three seemingly non-descript blokes and a shy girl looking to carry on where Joy Division had left off.

I’ve never seen anyone quite like you before. No I’ve never heard anyone quite like you before.

mp3 : New Order – Temptation (12 inch version)
mp3 : New Order – Hurt (12 inch version)

PS :

Bonus Birthday mix-tape for you all…..see above!!

 

New Order had released a belter of a debut single in Ceremony.  The follow-up hit the shops in September 1981:-

mp3 : New Order – Procession

It was quite similar to a number of the tracks on the debut LP Movement and it wasn’t a huge shift away from the Joy Division sound albeit it did highlight that with Bernard Sumner was a completely different sort of vocalist from Ian Curtis.

I bought the only copy of this single that my local record shop had and it came in a cardboard sleeve with a strange green design which I thought alluded to the title of the b-side. I soon discovered that it had been released in nine different coloured sleeves and while I wanted to own every single one of them, there was no way an 18-year-old student, who that month had just started university, was going to waste valuable vodka money on something as unworthy as a 7″ bit of plastic.

The b-side was a precursor to what New Order would become within a few months – a band of their own right delivering electronic dance-music.

mp3 : New Order – Everything’s Gone Green

This is ripped right from vinyl folks and is a bit shorter than the versions generally available on compilation LPs, so please forgive the fact that there’s also a wee skip and a jump about 3mins in…..

Oh and here’s the other eight sleeves in miniature:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is someone I know who thinks New Order should have disbanded in around 1985 as the music they have made since then has betrayed everything that Joy Division stood for.  Despite holding such strident and unacceptable views, he remains a dear friend…and besides it gives us one more thing to fight over when we are drunk.

Me?  I’ve never hidden from the view that it took until 1989 for their masterpiece to emerge….and while there has been the occasional nugget of gold since then, I’d have been happy if this had been their last ever record.

It’s worth recalling that the release of Brotherhood in 1986 had disappointed many fans. It was, in the main, a lacklustre affair and indeed was shown up as such when the compilation LP Substance was issued the following year. The one hope was that the Greatest Hits package featured two amazing new songs – True Faith and 1963, the former a wonderful dance track driven largely by Steve & Hooky and the latter a gorgeous pop number with Barney at last penning lyrics which made sense and had a semblance of a story line.

But post-Substance, the band seemingly disappeared off the radar and some folk (including your humble scribe) thought we’d seen the last of them.

In the days before t’internet, you had to rely on the music papers for news/info on your favourite bands. One week, I read a snippet that New Order had gone to Ibiza to record a new LP. Months passed. Nothing. More months passed. Still nothing. and I assumed that somehow I had missed the news that the band had broken up.

Then, out of the blue in late 1988, a single was released. It was called Fine Time and it was really quite different from anything else they had ever previously released being, for the most part an instrumental, and which was very clearly aimed at the dance market. And I loved it.

The album kind of sneaked out in January 1989. Little did we know that the low-key release was down to Factory Records lack of cash to give it the usual big marketing/advertising push. It came out when Britain is at its most cold, miserable and wet. But this album made you forget all that.

It was everything that fulfilled the promise of True Faith/1963. There were immense dance numbers, there were songs of love, joy and happiness, and there were songs about having your heart broken into many pieces. Every song could have been a single. No that’s not true. Every song could have been a #1 single.

Thankfully, the album did sell in reasonable quantities, but not enough to arrest Factory’s eventual decline into receivership/administration. It did however lead to New Order being asked to take the sound of Technique into the football world when they penned the England Squad’s 1990 World Cup Anthem, World In Motion, which finally gave the band the #1 hit they had been chasing for a few years.

Here’s three of the lesser known songs from the album:-

mp3 : New Order – Love Less
mp3 : New Order – Mr Disco
mp3 : New Order – Vanishing Point

Enjoy.

There’s no disputing that Movement, the 1981 debut LP from New Order, was a difficult listen upon its release. It’s a record whose nuances and dark tones I’ve gradually grown to like over time, but for many a year I felt that only its opening track was genuinely worth anything:-

mp3 : New Order – Dreams Never End

I’ve pondered occasionally what might have happened if Factory had insisted on releasing it as a single and that somehow it managed to chart. Would it have meant Hooky would permanently have been handed vocal duties? If so, would the band have gone onto enjoy the subsequent successes or would they have messily imploded all too quickly? Rhetorical questions of course, but ones for a good drunken debate of an evening….

There’s a Peel Session version also available to enjoy which really demonstrates how much the production work of Martin Hannett was essential to a band really finding its feet:-

mp3 : New Order – Dreams Never End (Peel Session)

This late post was inspired simply by the track coming up on random shuffle as I cam home from work last night and I thought to myself……fuck, that’s a great song.

My effort come up with an ICA for New Order last June placed Run as the final track on Side A when I said:-

Run is one of the most outstanding songs on the album and rather bravely the band went for an edited single release in due course in which about 45 seconds are chopped off and by editing down the dreamy instrumental finish to the song and replacing it with more of the re-recorded vocal with Barney’s voice given more prominence than the original mix. It’s a decent enough mix and does a job of giving us enough changes to think of it as a new song altogether but it’s not a patch on the original.

The remix was in fact worked on alongside Scott Litt who at tht point in time was known for having worked on couple of LPs by R.E.M.  The fact that he would also work on the multi-million sellers Out Of Time and Automatic For The People albums in the 90s and become one of the most talked about producers of that era was all in the future…..

Run 2 is really quite a different version. To expand on what I said in the ICA piece, the long instrumental section at the end of the original is replaced by a repeat of the chorus while there’s also greater prominence given to Bernard’s vocal and guitar and Hooky’s bass lines in an effort to make it more appealing to radio stations. Despite this, Factory Records didn’t press up all that many copies and it wasn’t the easiest thing to find in the shops.

The record stalled at #49 in the UK charts which was the poorest showing by a New Order single in a long while. But this where the fun really started…..

After the release, John Denver (or more accurately John Denver’s lawyers) sued the group, claiming that Run 2, in particular the instrumental part, sounded too similar to his hit Leaving On A Jet Plane. The case was settled out of court, and as a result the single in it’s remixed form was, for a very long time, out of print save the original few thousand copies made available in 1989.

As a result, Run 2 was a bit of music much sought after by fans, especially outside the UK (it was never made available at all overseas). There was much anticipation when Run 2 was listed on the track lists of compilation LPs released in 1994 and 2005, but in fact it was always the original version from Technique that was included.

But finally in 2008, a deluxe edition of Technique was released that included the extended mixes of Run 2 and the track MTO that had been on the b-side of the 12″. But even now, the regular mixe of Run 2 and minus mix of MTO are otherwise unavailable.

Unless someone rips them from vinyl:-

mp3 : New Order – Run 2
mp3 : New Order – Run 2 (extended mix)
mp3 : New Order – MTO
mp3 : New Order – MTO (minus mix)

Oh and nowadays, the credits for all newly released versions of Run are attributed to Sumner, Hook, Morris, Gilbert and Denver.

Enjoy

The thing is….I don’t care if anyone wants to come on and offer up their take on a singer or band featured previously in what is proving to be an incredibly popular series.  The e-mails have been coming in thick and fast from all corners of the globe and there is a small backlog of posts building up but as far as I’m concerned that’s perfectly acceptable.

I’ve always said this blog is only as good as the contributions from readers whether that be via comments or guest postings and the quality and depth of stuff in this series really has invigorated the whole process.

Today’s contribution has come in from Sweden courtesy of Martin Elliot….

In a few weeks I’m off to see Peter Hook & The Light playing New Order and Joy Division, and the other week I got my ticket to the New Order show in Stockholm on November 8 – I just had to give this a go. Following JC’s limitations to tracks that I have (or have had) on vinyl limits the album a bit, bit I guess also made it possible as many tracks just didn’t fulfill the criteria. Considering the length of the tracks in reality this would be a 2 LP set, but I made it into a very long LP.

A1. Blue Monday 12″

The track that defined New Order as a band on their own merits, not the continuation of Joy Division. Don’t get me wrong, I love JD – maybe even more today than 1980, but Blue Monday made NO into the fantastic band they still are. There is no way I could start a NO compilation but here, the line that marked the before and after.

A2. 1963 (12″ b-side)

The lyrics always concerns me, what happened that day 1963? Brilliant.

A3. Round & Remix (Kevin Saunderson club mix 12″)

New Order goes to Detroit, the worn down industrial cities works just perfect together. Can’t stop dancing.

A4. Regret (Sabres Slow’n’Low 12″)

As many I regard Technique as the best NO album, but in my book Republic is pretty close as a consistent album. This version of Regret by Sabres is pure beauty.

A5. Age of Consent (LP version)

I think JC said it, it just had to make a fantastic end to the a-side – not start it.

B1. True Dub (12″ b-side of the remix 12″)

Could be my all time favorite NO remix, runs just over 10 minutes and I always wish it would go on. Dance ecstasy.

B2. Someone Like You (Gabriel & Dresden Voco-Tech dub 2×12″ UK promo)

Another 10+ minutes mix, another magic dance track.

B3. World (The Price Of Love) (Brothers In Rhythm 12″)

Could be my all time favorite NO remix, runs just over 8 minutes and I always wish it would go on. Dance ecstasy. Wait, didn’t I just write those words…

B4. The Perfect Kiss (12″)

They did put out a lot of brilliant 12″ singles, didn’t they? Like this.

B5. Ceremony (original 12″)

A beautiful closing track, a beautiful farewell to Ian.

As many of the readers of this blog I remember when the early buyers of an album were treated with a bonus 12″ or EP, so I give you a limited edition bonus record – a single sided 12″ with the full 17 minutes version of Elegia. Because I still love Joy Division.

Hit me…

Martin

mp3 : New Order – Blue Monday
mp3 : New Order – 1963
mp3 : New Order – Round & Round (KS club mix)
mp3 : New Order – Regret (Sabres Slow n Low)
mp3 : New Order – Age Of Consent
mp3 : New Order – True Dub
mp3 : New Order – Someone Like You (GD Vocotech dub)
mp3 : New Order – World (Brothers in Rhythm)
mp3 : New Order – The Perfect Kiss (12″)
mp3 : New Order – Ceremony
mp3 : New Order – Elegia (extended)

Enjoy.